Sunday, June 28, 2015

Murder in the Corn Maze by Gloria Alden, Willow Knoll Publishing, 2015. ISBN 9781511747264, 317 pp. $14.95. Murder in the Corn Maze is Gloria Alden’s fifth Catherine Jewell gardening mystery set in Portage Falls, Ohio. This one features a local Halloween tradition of setting up a variation on the haunted house custom in a corn field, creating a maze with witches, ghosts, vampires, and zombies scattered through the cornfield of a local farm. Alden’s books are gentle traditional mysteries even if the killer uses a pitchfork or an axe. As many traditional mysteries are, these are set in a village, but Alden’s own vision of village life is what her novels grow out of. Her vision reminds me of my Russian friend’s saying that the best place to “build the human soul” is in the village. I’ve pondered what he meant. In a village we are known, for good or bad. Even if our good deeds are done quietly, they become known because we check on each other and talk about each other. Other people also take responsibility for us. It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. In a village people reach out to those in need whether because they need funds for an operation or clothing and furniture because their house burned down. They also notice if certain teenagers are harming others and alert their neighbors.In Portage Falls two new residents who open an auto repair shop combined with a coffee shop are targeted by a little teen gang of mischief makers, and nasty anti-gay slogans are painted on their storefront. Everyone in town figures out quickly who did it, and the one teen likely to be responsible is Trent Lawrence who bullies his friends Todd Williams and Ryan O’Brien, and all three are encouraged in their ugly behavior by their English teacher and drama coach Dale Bryant.A pastor of a local church and part-time police office, gathers his parishioners to clean up the mess for the two new residents. The local police chief, John MacDougal, already has his eye on Trent and hopes to stop him before he does any more damage. He and other villagers hold Trent’s parents partly responsible for not curbing their son’s malicious behavior and for having spoiled him. Catherine had met the boys when she was helping her art teacher friend Maggie Fiest work on the costumes for the Corn Maze. The main characters have already assessed the danger this little gang is to an essentially peaceful community.The murder occurs during the first evening of the corn maze. It’s puzzling because the victim is the “coach” of the village bullies. Catherine has her brother with her for the maze, and it’s her friend Maggie who finds the body shortly after the murder. Catherine vows to stay out of this investigation, and knows her brother Michael and her boyfriend, the police chief, want her to, but if Maggie is suspected, she’ll have to get involved.These villagers are essentially law-abiding. When newcomers arrive, they are checked out, and word spreads about them, be it good or bad. In Alden’s vision of the village, the goal is to restore the peace and safety of the community. As people’s foibles become known, they are teased, but if they do harm, they are punished, and yet the hope of redemption hovers, if the culprit will mend his ways. In this series, the lead characters, Catherine and John MacDougal, are like the king and queen of a mythical village. He is just and responsible, but fully human, and she lives out her compassion, readily admitting to her own foibles. Alden knows her small towns well, and she invents characters we can love and admire as well as those who disrupt the equanimity of the village and must be punished. ***

Gloria Alden writes the Catherine Jewell Mystery series: The Blue Rose, Daylilies for Emily’s Garden, Ladies of the Garden Club, The Body in the Goldenrod, Murder in the Corn Maze, and a middle-grade book, The Sherlock Holmes Detective Club. Her published short stories include: “Cheating on Your Wife Can Get You Killed,” winner of the Love is Murder contest, “Mincemeat is for Murder”: and “The Body in the Red Silk Dress” in Bethlehem Writers Roundtable, “The Professor’s Books” in Fish Tales, “The Lure of the Rainbow” in Fish Nets, “Once Upon a Gnome,” in Strangely Funny, and “Norman’s Skeleton” in All Hallows Evil. She lives on a small farm in NE Ohio with assorted critters: her collie Maggie, two house cats, a canary, two old African ring-necked doves, two ponies, and five rather old hens, plus one loud guinea fowl. She blogs with Writers Who Kill on Thursdays. Http://writerswhokill, blogspot.com. Website: www.gloriaalden.com

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Coal ash dust blowing off Cape Fear plant's coal ash pond near Corinth Rd, photo by Susan Poe, April 3, Good Friday, 2015.***On June 18, 2015, I had the privilege of meeting Esther Calhoun, President of the Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice, based in Uniontown, Alabama, which received 4 million+ tons of coal ash from the Kingston, TN. spill of 2008. Esther’s T-shirt read: “I can’t breathe.” She smiled easily. She talked freely. Her message to us here in southeastern Chatham and northern Lee Counties was: “Don’t let it come. Fight it. I wish we had fought harder to stop it. Stick together. Love each other.” With her was Adam Johnston, the Alliance Coordinator for Alabama Rivers, who offered the same message of compassion and love, and also urged us to fight this while we can.Last November we learned that Duke Energy, our state’s only electricity generating company, was planning to transport 12 million tons of coal ash to a Brickhaven clay mine by rail and truck; and to a Colon Road site in Lee County, another 8 million.Our county governments were superseded by state law, though both boards of commissioners voted resolutions not to have it. By June 16, both boards had signed agreements with Duke not to try to stop it. Chatham’s deal even forbids our Board of Commissioners from supporting our citizen organization Chatham Citizens Against Coal Ash Dump, although individual board members, as individuals, are not prevented from speaking out and supporting us.The bald facts remain: coal ash is extremely hazardous, in the air, on the ground, in our drinking water. Both sites are near the Cape Fear River, which provides water to Sanford and for southeast Chatham, and all the towns and cities downstream to the coast: Wilmington, Fayetteville, etc. The rail line passes through the heart of our Moncure community and near homes, farms, and small businesses. The trucks will pass through Pittsboro and down the road I and many others live on: Moncure-Pittsboro–and then down Old #1, New #1, Pea Ridge, Corinth Rd, Moncure-Flatwood Rd. Thousands of people live along these roads. Duke’s contractor, Charah, is planning to wet and spray the coal ash before transporting it, but they don’t plan to cover it. After traveling more than a hundred miles from Charlotte and Wilmington, of course there will be dust blown off the trucks and coal ash dust moves miles on a windy day. It will get into ground water and into people’s lungs. The smaller the particles, the more toxic, and some are so small, you can’t see them. Diseases that occur from coal ash poisoning include COPD, heart, lung, and nerve problems, skin diseases. This dust can be fatal to children and unborn babies quickly. Esther told us she had neuropathy–pain in her arms and legs and numbness. The rail line passed near her home.

Coal Ash mountains in Alabama***The two boards of commissioners have tied their hands. They took the money and say they were planning to spend it to help their citizens. Chatham plans to put in air monitors, but Duke/Charah has proved itself careless of law and environmental regulations and generally unreliable. Duke has 34 coal ash ponds all over North Carolina leaking into our major rivers, where we get our drinking water. Charah’s trucks at the Asheville Airport, as filmed by a Charlotte TV station, had coal ash flying off them after a 3-mile journey. Then only a week after Charah was cited for a sedimentation violation, which didn’t slow them down, the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) released two of the four permits they need to build the landfills and haul the ash. The last two govern water and allow Charah to destroy the wetlands now existing in these old clay mines: the Army Corps of Engineers 404, and DENR’s 401.Some of us listened to Duke and Charah when our commissioners called them in for questions in open meetings. We heard them claiming how harmless this coal ash would be. They twisted the facts, called these coal ash landfills “clay mine reclamations.” They never gave straight answers. Our citizen researchers discovered how vulnerable the plastic liners are that contain the coal ash–how they can be torn and ripped, have stones poking through, get wrinkles during installation, have faulty seams, plus 12 different kinds of bacteria eat this kind of plastic.We know that the best and safest way to store coal ash is to make salt stone solids from it and store it above ground in concrete bunkers on site. It shouldn’t be moved. Esther’s words echo in my ears: “Fight this. Stick together. Love each other.” Her t-shirt remains in my mind’s eye: “I can’t breathe.” Her steady smile blessed us. Fighting coal ash dumping in my community has become a necessity. I can’t not do this.***

Esther Calhoun, Alabama activist***THE OMENS ARRIVE XIV. June 14, 2015We may live throughour days lulled by forgetfulness, our minds on a myriad of new details, new thingsand people which demand our time and attention. We think we have forgotten,but some memories stay right where weleft them. –The Omens Arrive III., March 15, 2015I’m forgetting you again. I still longfor a letter, but none comes. It’s hardto stay wishful, to hang onto hope.I’m encumbered with delay. Thereare good omens to counterbalancethe dread when I see large-sizedump trucks everywhere I look.“Know your counter-player,” said Erik Erikson. I know mine too well:lies, arrogance, and bluff. Othercorporations and government entitieshave lost money trying to dumpnuclear and other waste where I live,where that rare reality–community–exists. We have the best possiblehelp, and justice is ours. Yet how frailwe are, and how brave. We mustpersist though the sky darkens, the truck traffic worsens and my goodmemories of love found, lost, and foundagain, await resurrection.***

Sunday, June 14, 2015

My White Rock hens in winter. Photo by John Ewing.***GIFTS XXIV.January 11, 2015The highest efficacy is like water.It is because water benefits everythingyet vies to dwell in places loathed by the crowdthat it comes nearest to proper way-making.In dwelling, the question is where is the right place.In thinking and feeling, it is how deeply.In giving, it is how much like nature’s bounty.In speaking, it is how credibly.In governing, it is how effectively.In serving, it is how capably.In acting, it is how timely.It is only because there is no contentiousness in proper way-makingthat it incurs no blame.–Chapter 8, Dao de Jing, translated and with commentary by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall.I carry water to the hens and thinkhow I have tried to be like water.Sometimes I forget and then giftsarrived. Four students where I hadonly one. I welcome new neighbors,and they already trust me. I tellthem their huge tree is a championblack oak, over two hundred years old,that its roots go under both our homesand its leaves clean polluted air andgive shade in summer. I came tothis community, to this little pieceof land because I was poor. No oneelse wanted this half-finished house,but its space for garden, orchard,hens, and woods beyond satisfiedmy desire. Sixteen years later allmy neighbors know me. Whateverenemies are out there, they know not this richness of a quiet life, withwork using my heart, head, hands, feet, eyes, ears. The hens are purewhite, undeterred by sub-freezingtemperatures as long as they havefood and water. When the frostthaws, I pull up chickweed for them.I cut scavenged wood to burn andwrap myself in layers of wool andfur and fleece until the house warms.I remembered that the future, nomatter its grim prophecies, bringsits gifts. I see how I am living inthe right place, giving like watergives, seeking truth, serving others well, timing my acts to gothrough defenses, and when peoplefight with me, go around, let it go.It takes two to fight. I will not rejectthose who reject me. Bertha usedto tell her sons, “You’ll need mebefore I’ll need you.” They allcame to her funeral. Let us all emulate water. I know that I know how.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

GIFTS XXII.December 28, 2014It might be said that the gifts we give at times of transformation are meant to make visible the giving up we do invisibly. And of course we hope that there will be an exchange, that something will come toward us if we abandon our old lives. So we might also say that the tokens we receive at times of change are meant to make visible life’s reciprocation. They are not mere compensation for what is lost, but the promise of what lies ahead. They guide us toward new life, assuring our passage away from what is dying.–The Gift, Lewis Hyde, p. 44.My life is undergoing change in subtleyet unmistakable ways. The writer emerges more strongly, with a newforce–call it satyagraha, truth force.Losses are part of this new life. My elderdaughter says she is “done with me.”I have fewer students, yet my bookthat opens wide a true story, oncehidden, is praised. People want tocome near, touch, and be held by its boldtruth tale. I knew this was my destiny:to tell the whole story of my life. Meantime all my window flowersare blooming. The orchid found itshappiest place in my writing corner andnow maroon leaves, which have swarmed out into the room, put up buds. An orangecosmos found root at the water lineof the red-flowering succulent andmakes its second bloom. My twoChristmas cacti are flowering in thekitchen window where there is barelyroom for their long, pink, extravagantblooms. This next stage takes a strongspirit but will crown my life andpull all the threads together, and ifI’m lucky, knot them for eternity.I look back and see a year of more poverty but also more people reachingout to prevent me from falling. Ishall know bewilderment, confusion,self-doubt, but my Guide will help meand those around me who see my innergifts and want to ease my difficult way forward.

About Me

I write mystery novels, poetry, autobiographical books, reviews and articles. My Hoganvillaea Farm provides about half my food. I sell eggs and figs. My newest book, Grace: A China Diary, 1910-16 came out April 12, 2017. The next Penny Weaver mystery comes out June 1,2017: Political Peaches. Formaldehyde, Rooster (2016, Nuclear Apples? The Third Penny Weaver Mystery, 2016. The Sands of Gower: The First Penny Weaver Mystery (2015), Haw (2016): The Second Penny Weaver Mystery. Killer Frost (2012) and Farm Fresh and Fatal (2013) will be re-published in 2017 This River: An Epic Love Poem came out from Wild Embers Press in 2014. You may order all the books from me, as well as my poetry chapbook Beaver Soul (Finishing Line Press, 2013) and This River:An Epic Love Poem (2014): PO Box 253, Moncure, NC 27559 mysteries cost $16, with postage, $19;Grace costs $28, $30 if mailed. Beaver Soul is $13; $16 if mailed. This River is $15 if picked up, $18 if mailed. My PMZ Poor Woman's Cookbook: Vegetarian Recipes for Survival and Health in the Menopausal and Post-Menopausal Years. $10; $13 if mailed. I hold the copyright to all the material on my blog, which I've written.